'lIRE MALADMINISTRATION OF LIBBY AND ANDERSONVILLE PRISON CAMPS

A Study of Mismanagement and Inept Log1st1cal ~olic1es at Two Southern Pr1soner-of-war Camps during the C1v1l war

In Accordance w1th the Requirements and Procedures of Interdepartmental 499.0 Under the Direction and Gu1dance of Doctor Will1am Eidson. Associate Professor of H1story. Ball State University Presented as a Senior Honors 'rhes1s

by Dan1el Patrick Brown

w1nter Quarter, 1971-72 Ball State Univers1ty i

7/::;

I rec.ommend this thesis for acceptance by the Ball state Univers1ty Honors Program. Further, I endorse this thesis as valid reference material to be utilized in the Ball state University Library.

,i William G. Eidson, Department of History Thesis Advisor

(Date)

'rHE MALADMINISTRATION OF LIBBY AND ANDERSONVILLE PRISON CAMPS

INTRODUCTION Pr1soner-of-war suffer1ng has been perhaps the most un­ fortunate ram1ficat10n of war itself. It 1s th1s paper's purpose to analyze the orig1nal cause of pr1soner-of-war suffer1ng in the Confederate states of Amer1ca during the Amer1can C1v1l war. Certa1nly, the problem of leg1t1mate treatment of prisoners··of-war st1ll plagues mank1nd. The respons1bli ty of po11 tic:al states in the1r treatment of these pr1soners, the naturEI and character of the Confederate leaders accused of pr1sonElr cruelty, misappropr1at10n. and m1smanagement. and the adverse conditions naturally inherent with war; all, over a century after they became 'faits accomplis,' loom 1n the minds of po11t1cal and mi11tary leaders of today's world.

In countlE~ss examples, from the newly estab11shed countr1es of Africa and As1a to the world's oldest democratic republic,* war crime::;' tr1als clearly demonstrate man' s continued search for the reasons of maltreatment to the victims of capture. In my research of two Confederate prisons, I have found myself concentrat1ng my attention on the quest10n, "why did

*1 am referr1ng here to Biafra 1n Western Africa and Bangla Desh 1n Southeast Asia as well as the Un1ted States of America. .2 the prisoners-of-war have to suffer to the extent they did ?tt The spec1fic factors which have conditioned interest in the treatment of prisoners-of-war in our contemporary soc1ety are 1ntricate enough examined alone. Thus, when analyzed as a total, homogeneous conglomerate, the question of "why?" becomes even harder to decipher. Obviously. there is no one. single answer to this quest1on. The recurr1ng inhumane care of war prisoners has been exemplified poignantly on at least three d1fferent occasions since the Civil War.* If man is to 1mprove h1s situat10n in this world, he must attempt learn from past realities and the 1nevitable problems which follow immediately after the oonfliot. Equally, for man to understand 'why?' is for man to prevent 'why not?' Though there is an obvious differenoe between then and now. it is, also true that the very nature of prisoner-of-war administration histor1cally has encountered uniformity and similar1ty in analysis. Therefore. I have centered my inquiry upon 'recurring' aspeots of the prisoner-of-war question.

I. 'HqrEr. a LIBBX'

After the First Battle of r~ssas (called Bull Run by the Federal forces), the Confederates had an additional one thousand men (plus one Congressman speotator) suddenly in their possession. The oonfederate field commanders directed these Union prisoners toward the capital of the Conf~erate

*Subsequent to World War II, the Korean Confliot of 1950-5J, and presently in the divided oountries of North and South Vietnam. 3 states of Amer1ca--R1ohmond, Virg1n1a. Caught off guard and needing a plaoe to put all these men, the Rebel Government quickly looked to the c1ty's available edifices. when the unexpected prisoners were brought to Richmond, they were conducted to an unused tobacco factory 1n the district of the clty known a8 Rockett' s. 'rhe officers were confined in a warehouse formerly belonglng to the firm of Llggon and Sons. ayd the men were placed 1n near-by bulld1ngs. One of the bu1ld1ngs, Libby (property of Libby and Son, Shlp Chandlers and Grocers), later called 'Hotel de Libb7' sardon- ically by some of 1ts inhabitants, was born in an era of bureaucratic necesslty. With the converslon of the ship chandlers' and tobacco warehouse into a prison, the three ensu1ng problems of narrow space, vent1lat10n, and san1tatlon were apparent. As the flux of pr'isoners-of-war progressed., the over-populatlon compounded, these dlre problems. The three-story bu11ding was hardly adequate for the numbers it housed. Orlg1nally, enlisted men were housed w1th the1r Un10n superiors, but they were qulckly moved to Belle

Isle, Ii camp designed only for thelr grades. 'rh1s, actually, d1d not alleviate matters much as there was a walting l1st of offlcers deta1ned nearer the 11nes. These men were lmmedlately transported to L1bby. All the bulld1ngs (former warehouses) were 1n the same over-crowded cond1tlon and S. P. Moore, the Act1ng Surgeon-General of the Confederate Army, acknowledged

1Wil11am B. Hesseltine, Ciyil ~ Prisons, A study 1n ~ Psychology (New York, Frederick Ungar Publish1ng Co •• 1930), p. 57. 4 that the police of the prisons was very bad and. due to the crowded corldtions. it might give rise to pestilence and disease.2 He then recommended finding another building to alleviate EL potential danger to the inhabitants of Richmond. Since the tobacco barns had not been designed for human habi t­ ation, the problems involved in all the various functions of day-to-day 11v1ng (more aptly here, 'subs1sting') were immense' In the narrow 11mits of these s1x rooms were c~onfined for many months nearly eleven hundred United states officers, prisoners of war. Th1s included all our room for cQok1ng, eating, washing, bathing and sleeping.) 1111 th the eJ:tremely crowded conditions, such diseases as dysentery, diarrhea, and typhus rapidly spread and human suffering became commonplacEI. 'l'he limited area. also, was destined to become more limited. The paranoia of the citizenry of Richmond in the later stages of the war, with rumors running rampant of the prisoners attempting to break-out of Libby, caused l1aJor Thomas P. Turner. the Commandant of L1bby Pr1son, to curtail the living space even morel IYlarch 1 a86lU, Cloudy. cold. rainy. 'llhe first day of' Spring. Eight months of captivi ty I I 'rhe w1ndows are now all barred with iron, and have been so several weeks. 'rhis morning an order from ~*jor Turner was read that no clothes must be hung out to dry or air. under penalty of con-

2 U. S. iVar Department, ~ .m sa: !.bit Rebelli on' A QQ,m­ D1latlg,u ~. ~ Qfflcal Records Rt. ~ Union Im\ conf,derate Arml!s (washington, Government Printing Office. 1898, Series II, Volume III, p. 698. Hereafter cited as ~ and all references will be to Series II • .3 Alva C. Roach, l.b§. frlspner .m: .!Al:. &n£ .. 'l'r@alGed ( Indiana­ polis, j.'he Railroad City Publishing House t 186.5), p. 47. 5

fiscat10n and no one myst go to a w1ndow, under penalty or being ,hot. And this in rooms where each person gas a space only 6 feet long by ~ feet wid,t It

Of course, the Confederates were primarily concerned wlth thelr Unlon capti,res signa11ng to sympathlzers of the Federal cause in Richmond. As General Dow stated in hls diary entry, lt is too much to stop prisoner movement near wlndows due to the already res"cricted amount of room. Certa1nly, thls seemed llke add1tional Rebel torturet OWing to the fact that vent1lat10n was not a cons1der- ation when the ship-chandlers' warehouse was erected, once the bu1ld1ng was converted 1nto a prlson, the human occupants had to suffer. During the summer, the pr1son was almost un- bearably hot with 11ttle breeze moving through the bu1lding. Prisoners simply restricted their movements, so as not to be- come caught, short of breath or persp1re and thereby lose body fluid they could ill afford to lose. Freder1c F. Cavada, then a prlsoner coming into Libby, depicts hls first 1mpress10ns of his priflon room ln July, 1863, as "long, low, dlngy, gloomy, and suffOC!Lt1ng ... 5 Tobacco warehouses, as a matter of fact, are designEtd to retain heat to keep the tobacco dry. 'l'h1s certainly lfas of no consolatlon to sweltering Union pr1.soners. Durlng the winter months, the sltuat10n was exactly re­ versed. Cl::>ld drafts whipped through Libby periodically .a the

4prank L. Byrne. "A General Beh1nd Bars' Neal Dow in Ll bby Prison.·· QUU .!Au: HlstQtX, VIII (June. 1962). 177. 5Prederic F. Cavada, L~~~~ ~a Exper1ences of ~ Pr1soner ~ ~ in R~ChmOnd. ~. 18 - 4 (Ph1ladelphla: J. B. Llpp1ncott & Co., 1865 • p. 23. 6 window panes were not correctly fitted and oracks were numerous in the old and inferior masonry. During the first winter, the situation was alleviated by heating f1res, but th1ngs got pro­ gressively worse, winter to winter. During the winter of 186)-64, Libby was extremely cold due to the laok of wood in Richmond for cooking and heating.6 'l'he next winter the 'rurner restriction on movement near the windows prevented any work on the main areas where cold air moved through the walla--namely, between the glass panes and w1ndow ledges. Also, this worsening situation created problems of movement on particularly cold, windy days, as inmates were, naturally, more inclined to draw one of their f11thy blankets about themselves and huddle. Certainly, there was not the room to move about much, thereby generating heat; consequently, they went to the opposite extreme and bundled themselves. Every soldier, once incarcerated, had to res1gn himself to minimal movement, for "they could not leave its narrow con:fines even for exercise." 7 Those prisoners-of-war in the top level of Libby were 1n the best posit1on because of the warm air circulating there. 'l'hls was due to the tendenoy of warm alr tlO move to the top of a building as well as the slant of the roof enhancing more equal distribution of warm air on the third floor. 8

'l'he s~lni tation of Libby was also a problem, but it was a problem that the Confederate command seemed to work at some-

6F'ranlr. L. Bryne. "Libby Prisonz A Study in Emotions," Journal Ql Southern H1storY, XXIV (February, 1958), 4)8. 7Ibid., p. 434. 8Cavada, Libby ~. p. 27. 7 what more effectively than the other two. Originally, L1bby was to be a temporary hold1ng pr1son for pr1soner exchange, but, after the summer of 1863, it was obvious that 1t would be a permanent fixture of the Confederate pr1son system. The or1ginal concept of 'temporary' use of Libby prevented the South from investing much time or money early in the war to improving such 'bu1It-in' inadequacies as I have mentioned to point (i.e., narrow space, ventilation, and sanitation).

Of the three problems, sanitation was virtually the only one the South could do much about without completely remodeling the prison. The Confederates really could not possibly keep ahead of the unsanitary condit1ons, but they at least made an attempt. The primary reason for the inability to control the sanitation adequately was due to the previous lackadaisical attitude (prior

to the 'permanence' of Libby) toward sanitation (by inmates as well as prison administrators) and over-crowding. '1'0 minimize some of the unsanitary conditions, the Confederates had their

~egro slaves scrub the prison floors with soap and water plus and occas1onal whitewashing of the walls and ceilings.9 Also, prior to p:risoners getting up in the mornings, the Rebels as· signed two 'colored attaches' to fumigate the rooms with 'tar­ smoke. tlO Cavada and many other prisoners complained of the inconven1ellce and ordeal of the process. but, undoubtedly, this procedure did help elim1nate some of the hygienic suffering.

9 Ib1

10 Ib~Qp..• p. 4 1. 8

Libby's geographic position. as well as other hichmond prisons, was precarious, to say the least. I'he nerves of the citizens of Richmond were constantly tense and this created a Confederate administration sometimes too cognizant of their nerves. 'rhe situation often resulted in actions which were a detriment to the prisoners, which, in turn, appeared as totally unfounded punishment against the innocent Union prisoners-of-war, not aware of the circumstances. A cla,saic example of this unfolded when the citizenry of

Richmond c~aught wind of a rumor that the Union prisoners were going to 'storm the prison' en masse, take all the weapons from their capt,ors, plunder the city of Richmond wh1le freeing the enlisted men across the James River (.delle Isle), and advance back to the Union lines, while laying the Confederate countryside to waste i.n the process of liberation. In order to prevent such an incident (even though, at the time, it was preposterous) the Commandant of the Prison, Major 'llurner, was prompted to place in the bottom of the prison two hundred pounds of powder and the prisoners were informed that any attempt to break out would result in the blowing up of the prison.11 The issue of the rumore~d break was particularly po1gnant at the time as the Union linEtB were drawing nearer to Richmond as a reaul t of the exploits ()f a Union Raider named Dahlgren. In any event, the plot. whiclh was creating the paranoid R1chmond citizenry, was laughingly disavowed by the alleged consp1rators, the Libby prisoners.. In their newspaper (which, incidently, was read

llHesseltine, eiyll ~ Prisons, p. 132. 9 by the edltor due to lack of paper), the prisoners-of-war satirically portrayed the whole affair as a foolish fear (which, as it turned out, it w8s).12 Needless to say, the populace of the Capital hindered the Confederate administration of Libby. In the final analysis, unfortunately, the prisoners pa1d the prlce of Richmond1te paranola. The location of the prlsonwas also a detriment in the area of logistical procurement. The two major problems for the geographic locatlon ln th1s case (logistlcs) are the blockade conslderations (with the Union concentratlng on hurt­ lng Richmond worst) and ratlons. In the f1rst instance, it would appear that it is merely a case of the 'hazards of war' (i.e., the Union prisoners having to suffer so that the South would be starved into submission), but a closer examination reveals that the Confederate administrative system d1d not always function for the best in getting the much needed cloth­ ing and blankets through. ;fhis situation ls in light of the blockade and of that material which did reach R1chmond. In 1864, the Confederates were even refusing to distribute the supplies which were being sent through the blockade to Libby prisoners .and much of the aid stayed on the barges wi thin the sight of the prisoners-of-war' Because of accusations of the late com­ missioner of exchange, General Meredith, publish­ ed in the newspapers. that these provisions were embezzled for sustenance for General Lee's army, they refused to receive any boxes either from 'Jur Government or from State governments.

12 The Pr1soners of Libby, 1ba Libby Chronicle (New York. Louis N. Beaudry, 1889), pp. 47-8. 10

Then. because the Sanitary Commiss1on and var10us benevolent 1ndividuals indulged their patriotism by labelling their boxes. "To our starving soldiers in Riohmond," "To our brave defenders in Libby Prison," the rebel author- 1t1es refuf,d to reoe1ve all boxes sent to our pr1soners. 'rhe refusal of the South to distribute the boxes seemed like a clear-cut act of 1nhumanity and General Dow, in Libby at the time, was extremely upset that once they were delivered, the contents had seemingly been robbed for Confederate use.14 A secondary logistical problem with the detention of all this material was that the food within was worthless due to spoilage. Much lws been written about the rations which were issued

(or, in BODle accusations, whioh were ~ issued at all) to the inmates of Libby. One thing is clear concerning Libby's later stages, they got worse. Frank Bryne attributes this progres­ sively worsening situation to the "inadequacies of the Confederate administat1,ve and tranportation system. "15 'rhe food ration issue was a multifarious problem in Southern prison camps and, in Libby's case, probably the Single most 1ncriminating issue to be brought to light at the end of the war was in regard to rations. However, ow1ng to the poverty of the South after the Un10n victories in the summer of 1863. the tood calamity was inevitable. Perhaps the only real crime the South was guilty ot, aside from inability and mismanagement, was the fact that

1J.Qjl, Volume VI, p. 97). 14Bryne. Civil ~ H1storY, Volume XII, p. 179.

15Ibid., p. 171n. 11 they di(i not res1gn themselves to defeat follow1ng the sur­ render of Vicksburg. Financ1ally and logistically, they were unmistakenly operating 1n a deficit s1tuat1on. But, for th1s. the Un10n pr1soners suffered. L1eutenant George Haven Putnam, a pr1soner colleague of Dow, described the food th.e Un10n sold1ers were rat10ned at L1bbY' b1tterly. ",Ie regretted to part with the black bean soup, although we had not been fond of 1t. It conta1ned about as many bugs as there were beans, the ta.ste was abom1nable, and the nour1shment proba'bly slight. I understand later when I was on paz'ole 1n Richmond, that the beans and corn- meal i,Baued to the pr1soners had been rejected 16 by thEI commissar1es as unf1 t for their own troops.

The accusat~1ons that the Confederates issued the .Northern pr1soners only rat1on.s. as Putnam suggests, that the1r quartermaster had

rejected has not been proven. As the quant1ty as well as qua11ty of food d1Dlin1shed, there was a request by the comm1ssary-general of the Confederacy directed to Secretary of War Walker "that rations of meat should be no longer 1ssued to the pr1soners and

oat and cornmeal gruel, pea soup. soft hom1ny. and bread be

substitutecl."17 However, even this was not approved due, to

walker's ~t11ef that prisoners and Confederate sold1ers should

receive th~! same rations. 'fhis was ordered, but, by the last months of 1864, the Libby ration was comprized of soup made out of inccmsp1cuous l1ttle beans, and a chunk of corn bread.18

16George H. Putnam. A £r1sQner R1 ~ in V1rgin1a1864-5 (New York; The An1ckerbocker Preas. 1912), p. 23. 17 Hesselt1ne. Ciy1l ~ ?riIOQ!. Pp. 115-6. 1 8PutflAm , ~ in V1rg1n1a. p. 22. 12

Prior to this, the strain of even mental entertainment became too much for the inmates to stand: Later in the winter, our chess playing came to a stop. we found that the attempt to concentrate eye-s:lght and attention when we had had so little to eat that our brain cells were dnuded of blood. cause~d di zziness, and ocassionally fainting fits. I th1.nk. in fact, that an order tf9stoP ohess came from the general or his adjutant. One can iUlagine what the effect of decreasing an already deficit diet would have on the mental state of the prisoners-of-war. Following Dow's diary, one sees an increasing amount of notations stating. "a little head ache" or simply "head ache" as the days went on and rations decreased. Putnam relates that "during the close of our sojourn in Libby, the soup part was cut off and the ration reduced itself to the corn bread.,,20 It seems that existence alone became the greatest of all human endeavors for the inmates of Libby Prison. In direct contrast to the prisoners, the guards faired better due to their access to money and the freedom to travel during off-d~ty hours at will in Richmond. Although they were to be issued essentially the same basic diet as the inmates (see the walker reference on the previous page), it was inevitable, owing to their ingenuity, that their plight would be much better than the United States officers they controlled. Also, the temptation of graft surely was too much for some of the guards to bear as extra money for the necessities of life could be made by supplying prisoners with food from the city markets. The

19Ibid •

20Ibid.L, p. 42. l3 pr1soners had money sent to them from relatives 1n their mail (some of which was stopped with the Confederate censorship inspect10ns) for, at least in part, this purpose. Their freedom to move about and their salar1es from the Confederate States of Amer1ca enabled the Rebel guards to subs1st better than, certa1nly, the Union officers of L1bby Prison. 'l'he 1nabil1 ty of the Confederate prison admin1strat1on to control the1r guards is apparent in other matters of graft. It seems that the moral acumen of many guards was slight 1n correlation to their charges' offers of br1bery (to escape from the pr1son). On several occasions. the ab1l1ty of pr1soners to obta1n i~emporary freedom was traced to 'pay-offs' to Con­ federate guards. 21 '1'he problem seems to last from the days of its prison ex1stence without any administrat1ve remedy or even semi-correction of th1s undes1rable s1tuat1on. It 1s thls type of prison malfunction wh1ch creates more severe problems for the inmates (via reverberatlons). A s1gniflcant event of the Clvll War oecured on the night of February 9. 1864, and it is one of the events which helped hasten the 'phasing-out' of Libby. A few officers banded to­ gether, "d.ug a tUnnel from a storeroom 1n the basement [fa a!!1 ad joining street (!'cross from the prison!. 'l'he tendenc, of the human mole is to bore upward; the tunnel came to the top too soon " •• w1th about a hundred of them gett1ng awa,. before

21Roacn• ~.iQK 'reated, pp. 91-9). 14

the noise attracted attention of the guards ... 22 'rhis was probably the greatest escape of the War of Rebellion, but le88 than half of the one hundred and nine prisoners-ot-war to escape made it back to Union lines. This, however, was not the first escape at Libby, but only served to be the largest. It was also to have the most punitive aftereffects for those unfortunate enough to be recaptured or unable to even be involved in the escape; in short, those who remain­ ed within the walls of Libby. The escapes were more the fault of poor prison management than Union ingenu1ty. Following the last escape, 'Dick' Turner (a subordinate jailer and of no relation to the command1ng officer) attempted to make Libby 'un-escapable!' This did not erase previous administrative errors, thc)ugh, January JO, 1864. Yesterday, a l1ttle head ache. This morning a canal boat is unloading about 200 private boxes, but the last arrival of boxes have not been yet delivered to us. Cloudy. cold morn­ ing. Yesterday and to day, five offiCers escaped. Being in citizens or Bebel drt!aes. thel walked .2ll~ lUllclJ,y. in to! daX t1me I I Byrne attr1.butes such escapes to Rebel 'lack of internal con­ trol.,24 More Simply, this 1s merely another example of Con­ federate ma.ladministration. Another consideration for examination of the South's in- eptness in management is the disarray and confusion that they

22F • T. Miller, IDA PhotQ&t&pblc H1.to~y gl ~ Civil ~ (New York. The Review of Reviews Co •• 1912 , Volume VII, p. 14J.

2JByrne, Journal, p. 172.

241;i4., p. 172n. 15 epitomised throughout the conflict. Naturally, during these precedent-setting times, they were operating out of no historic premise (at least, with no historic similarity to our Civil war) and a certain amount of disorder was bound to occur. However, certain 'occurances' were so large in their magnitude that it is not all 'passable' as strictly • precedent-setting. , It is now documented that the South, during the critical period of prison establishment, had additional hindrances from members of the higher echelon of the Confederate Government conflicting with one another. Examples of this are many but two of the more poignant ones include 'a quarrel over the exerCise of authority,25 and the shifting of responsiblity for the unsanitary conditions of the Richmond tobacco warehouses (Libby included, of course).26 It is a psychological proclivity to do this, but, again, at some pOint someone is responsible and the Rebel hierarchy had a number of members with expertise in 'passing-the-buck.' In the North, Libby built-up the nefarious reputation as an example of Rebel prison exploitation. Those being exploited were of course the Union officers held prisoner within Libby's walled confines. 'rhe explol tation of newly arrived prisoners by prison guards came in the form of graft and this seems to have fired the imaginations of Northern vindictives even more pronouncedly than simple bribery (see page 13). The admission procedures which prisoners were subjugated to prior to internment were simply a complete, thorough 'shake-down' with the Confederates taking all. The Rebels confiscated everything the prisoners had except for

25Hesseltine, Civ*l ~ Pr1sops, p. 68. 26Ibig .. 16 the cloth1ng they had. In most of the post war pub11cat1ons concerning the prisoner's-of-war plight 1n the South, a point emphas1zed and reemphas1zed was that the Union troops were strip­ ped of everything a Rebel wanted. The Confederates, attempt1ng to stop Union currency, contraband, and objects that could be used to 'break-out' of Libby, from coming 1nto the prison, earnestly began the process of collection w1th a log (receipt books) whi·ch the Rebel clerks were to register by name all 1 tems conf1scated. Unfortunately, the admin1strat1ve heads did not adequately superv1se the responsib11ty for the log and 1t was lost. Whether the log was purposely 'misplaced' or not is un­ known, but once the items taken were no longer counted and entered 1n the rece1pt books, there was certa1nly an 1nflux of permanently lost and stolen belongings. Needless to say, many Un10n off1cers at L1bby were embittered much more by this poor management of the1r possess10ns. Pr1nc1pally, two important factors s1gnaled the end of L1bby and the movement of prisoners from the warehouse to off1cers' prisons in Macon, Georgia, and Danv1lle, Virginia. One was the edgy citizenry of Richmond. Hesselt1ne, 1n his analys1s, 11sts the escape as one pr1mary reason, but I have attr1buted the movement to this plus the resentment of citizens to the inflation involved 1n prices when large sums of prisoners come into the city, the paranoia of the citizenry stemming from the alleged plot, and, finally, the lack ot conf1dence the Richmond1tes felt in the guards ass1gned to keep the Un10n prisoners under control.27 Professor

27 ~L' p. 115. p. 1)0, and p. 1)2. 17

Hesseltine' devoted study to all these areas, but the importance of each one, with their correlation to the movement of prisoners out of Richmond, should be considered significant to the matter. Also, Robert E. Lee wrote on October 28. 186), that since the Federal Government would not exchange any more prisoners, the prisoners-of-war should be moved from Richmond for reasons of. 1) large numbers in the city, 'for many reasons,' is injurious.

2) their presence in Richmond increases the strain on the trans· portation system, ) their presence increases the high prices in the markets, 4) the Capital is vulnerable to attack, and 5) the Federal Government has already made arrangements for permanent prisons for Confederate prisoners.28 The second factor is the one which Hesseltine also lists and one to which Lee alluded.29 The constant probing of ~ebel lines in the direction of Richmond gave the Confederates just cause for concern. As the Federals advanced, the chauvinistic yell of' 'On to Richmond!' made the Southerners cognizant that prisoner evacuation was a vital necessity. Simply, it was a matter of "realizing the danger of the concentration of prisoners in the1.r cllpital, the Confederates finally emptied Libby and shipped its inmates Southward."30 As a Confederate prison with Union offioer inmates, Libby was no more.

28.QB, VI. 438-9. 29 Hesseltine, Ciyil ~ Prisons, p. 1)2.

)0Byrne, JOurnal. p. 44 1. 18

Some final oonsiderations about Libby are appropos prior to examining Andersonville. While many of the stigmata found at Libby oould be traoed to problems inherent in using a oon­ verted tobacoo warehouse in the Capital of the Confederacy, some of the events which took place (and added nee~lessly to the misery of the inmates) were oertainly not excusable as, con­ veniently, 'inherent.' The highly unregulated manner in which the prison was run can be witnessed by the Virtually oonstant graft, large and reocourring number of escapes, and, obviously, the general laok of confidence the populace of Riohmond felt for the1r Confederate guard seourity. In the North, these faoets of pr1son uLisadministration were easy prey for vindictive journal­ ists. Alsc) , the failure of the Southern prison administration to provide an exercise yard no doubt caused the dismal situation to worsen. Had the 1urner administration ordered the fumigation and whitewashing (see page 7) during a scheduled exercise period, inevitably the sanitation would have been better, the prisoners more physically fit (and, therefore, less prone to siokness), and the oomplaints of prisoners-of-war like Cavada and Roach would have logioally subsided. Unfortunately. the friotion between the prison authorities and the inmates should not have been as aoute as it was. It is here that the odious aspeots of maladministration created an even more unhealthy atmosphere for all concerned. In the final ,analysis, the Confederate ineptness of prison adminis­ tration made a crowded, unsanitary Libby prison almost unbearable. Following the war, one of the ironies of history befell Riohard Turner, (the Commandant Turner had already fled to Canada) 19 as the victorious Union Army imprisoned him in the same edifice he once helped control. However, he was not alone. Other im­ portant Southern officials were imprisoned in Libby until, due to lack of evidence for trail. they were released and Libby was never to be used as a prison again)l

III • •~ SUMTER. lDB~' In Noyember, 1863. the Confederate Secretary of War ordered Captain w. S. Winder)2 to find a location suitable for a prisoner­ of-war camp in the State of Georgia. Captain Winder was to insure that the new aite was "in the neighborhood of Americus or I/alley Io"ord" and 'with access to a quartermaster town.3) It was I". S. Winder who surveyed the area and decided the location of the new prisoner-of-war camp would be "in the midst of Georgia', s cotton­ and corn-grOWing section. seven miles west of the Flint River. forty-two miles east of the Chattahoochee, and about sixteen hundred felet east of the depot at Anderson Station ... 34 Long after the Civil Nar, Jefferson DaVis himself would justify winder's deoision f,or the new prison' S site "because of its supposed seouri ty

31Byrne. Ciyil ~ History, p. 18).

)2One of three winders to be involved in the history of Anderson­ ville and the son of the eventual commissary-general of the Confederate prison sys"Cem. )).QH. VI, 558.

)4OVi(i L. Futch. Historl 9.l. Andersonville Prison (Indiantown. University of Florida Press, 1968), p. ). 20 from raidf;. together with its salubrity, the abundance of water and timber, and the productive farming country around it."J5 It was in Sumter County, Georgia. The Gonfederate authorities approved Captain winder's choice and dispatched Captain Richard B. winder, a cousin of w. S.

~inder, to direct the erection of the new prison--a stockade. It is from this point that Confederate stockade managers begin their lone~ series of poor forecasts,J6 calamitous short-range planning, inability to procure essentials for the new prison, and inadequate attempts to cope with stockade sanitation. Originally, the Confederates foresaw the prison to have a popula­ tion Clf slx thousand men, but Richard winder moved the figure to ten thousand, in an enclosure of about only sixteen and one­ half acres.J ? Winder immediately ran into logistical problems as he could not secure beef due to the need of men to drive them to Camp Sumter (as Confederate officials named the entire com­ pound, garrison included), he had to go fifty miles to Columbus for the nE!arest quartermaster, he could not obtain cooking utensils due to thE~ remoteness of the camp, and he had already experienced difficulty in being assured of meal from the grist mills .J8 'l'he

J5JefferSon Davis, ~ !i1.K ~ fAll of ~ Confederate Goyer~men1~ (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881), Volume II, p. 59 • J6The emphasis is on forecasts, not predictions, as the Con­ federates did not create any modals from which they 'could exag­ gerate reality from.' J7Fut(~h, Andersonville .Prison, pp. 4-5. J8Ibidl. pp. 5-6. 21 location of the camp was already obsolete prior erection as far as the Confederate quartermaster was concerned; hence, long befor.~ the arrival of the ini tlal prisoners, the odious signs c)f what was to come due to the Southern nemisis of ineptness 'were apparent.

At; th'e time of the first arrivals grew nearer and nearer, Captain wi:nder became desperate for tools and equipment to run the camp. He wrote to his father, General winder (who made nepotism a reality in the South) to use his position and rank to help obtain the needed suPPlies.39 A controversy which was to rage long after the war was whY the proposed barracks were not built. Simply, the problem was in the inability of Dick Winder to pay comparable prices for the lumber. winder did not have the finances to compete with 'Georgia schedule prices.,40 BeSides, the Confederate Government in Richmond had deemed the ra11roads the higher prior1ty rating on t~e lu~ber question. the tragedy of no barracks will be examined later and the decision to go without the wooden structures was to be one of the most crucial of maladministrstive mistakes the Confederacy would make in the course of the war. Captain Winder, had he obtained the lumber, would still have been unable to construct the buildings due to the nonavallability of nails. ~inder sought an alternate means of housing, canvass tents, but this was out of the question ---,-- 39.I.l2JJl., p • 7. 40 Hesseltine, Ciyil ~ Prisons, p. 134. 22 due to thE! Confederate armies themselves being short on tents.

By the tinle the prisoners began filing through the unfinished confines. nothing but open space, without even provisions for established paths or routes, faced them, and the guard was al­ ready inad.equate for the numbers coming into the stockade. Artillery was positioned in the open area41 of the stockade perimeter, an area soon to be filled with a Georgia pine wall approximately fifteen feet high. Captain Winder. desperate over the sudden influx of prisoners with no means to house, feed, or clothe them, pleaded with Major A. M. Allen, the Quartermaster Executive in Columbus, Georgia, for some answers to his logistical problems.

~here 1s no market whatever at this post and it is utterly impossible that my laborers and employes can purchase the necessary food to live upon. except at the caprice and exorbitant charges of such persons as will bring provisions to them, and it 1s equally 1mpossible for them to obtain board of any kind at any price • • • Again, how are my negro laborers to be fed? And again, under precedent set at Richmond, which I am instructed to follow, the Yankees who are detained at work receive double rations. How are these rations to be accounted for? • • • .Please give me your very earliest attention to matters herein contained, as it iS42ecessary that they should be arranged at once.

The ability of Captain Richard ~inder to cope with the problems of Camp Sumter is questionable. Certainly, . the captain did much to try to alleviate the logistical inadequacies and the short-

41'rhe artillery was pOSitioned in this manner to demonstrate to incoming prisoners that the vacuum of, the unfinished stockade was not to be explored for an escape route. Until the completion of the pine! Wall. the artillery served its purpose as no inmates attempted s. 'break' at the unfinished portion of the compound.

42,QR, VI, 1018 •

... _--_._- 23 range planning of other Confederate prison authorit1es (primarily relatives), but, in light of what eventually happened at Anderson­ ville, he did not successfully meet the challenge. However, responsiblity for what was to occur can not be simply 'rested' on Captain Winder's back either, as the North did to the last commandant of Andersonville,43 Major Henry wirz. Ovid Futch rests a majority of the guilt on the Confederate Government for not realizing their inability: Ilhese difficulties experienced by the archl tects and builders of Andersonville Prison are suggestive of the troubles that continued to beset its admin­ istrators throughout its existence. There is some­ thing pathetiC about .Dick Winder's futile entreaties for supplies and equipment for Andersonville. One gets the impression from reading his letters that a man more capable of eff1c1ent organ1zation and more skilled 1n handl1ng men might have achieved greater success. But it can never be known to what exten"t; his failure was due to his ineptitude or to what I~xtent it was an unavoidable result of the dWin­ dling fortunes of the Confederacy. The prisoners of war who were to suffer and die ln Andersonville during the approaching months would reap a portion of the result.s of s government'1l4sttempt to do more than it was capable of doing. r )."iow, uprepared and skeptical of where to secure urgently needed equipment and suppl1es, Captain w. S. Winder, Camp Sumter Com­ mandant, received his first prisoners in late February, 1864. Union prisoners. notified on Belle Island that they were to be sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia. were either op­ timistic as: to the movement, or, apparently, unrealistic enough to bel1eve cartel was their new destination. Henry B. Sparks,

3 4 By this time, "Andersonv11Ie" had been designated the pr1son facility of the camp due to its proxim1ty to the hamlet, Anderson Station. 44putch, Andersonyille Prison, p. 9. 24 a member elf the Third Indiana Cavalry and a prisoner at Belle Island, made the following notation in his diary on February 18, 1864, I have not written for a few days because it was so cClld I could not. Yesterday morning 200 were sent away from the Island. Said they were going to Ge:orgia but think they will be exchanged. This morn1ng 400 more were sent away with the same word.45 Later, Spa.rks was to learn ellpirically that his assumption was incorrect--he was also a part of the exodus to Andersonville. General Dow, hearing of the movement of prisoners to Georgia, felt that the move was a positive one and that the new climate would enhance the health of the Union prlsoners.46 He too was unfortunately wrong.

An understanding of the peculiar facet~ of the adm1nis­ trative process at Andersonville can best be expla1ned in an examination of the very personnel to be oharged most viciously for the crimes of Andersonv111e at the end of the Clvil War. Only one of these three men was directly responsible for Ander- sonville's creation, composition, and administratlon. The second, Jefferson DaVia, President of the Confederate States of America. 1s impllcated for havlng the ultimate responsibllity for everything pertaining to the Southern movement, and the third, Hen:ry Wirz. the last Commandant of Andersonville, did not even f:lgure in Andersonville's history until late Narch. 1864, and did. not assume full command ot the prison and prisoners until

45Henry B. Spark'. Diary, (January J. 1864 to December JO, 1864) Indiana Stl!!lte Library (Central Division), Indianapolis, unpublished, February HI, 1864, entry. 46Byrrle. JOurM1, p. 114. 25

September, l864.47 Only General ~lnder could be dlrectly lm­ pllcated as a major Southern admlnlstrator lnvolved ln all facets of the lnfalnous Andersonvl11e Fen (as pr1soners so approprlately oalled it). 'rhese men were as diversified in politlcal beliefs. environmentlil origins t and compllci ty in the claimed Andersonville crlmes as the hetergenuous representatives of the Union Army lmprlsoned there. The attempt by the acrlmonlous Northern press to group at the end of the host111tles Wlnder. Davls. and Wirz, as 'one-1n-the-same' arch crlminals ls, by our standards today, ludlcrous. Of the three, there was flrst the sour, old Brlgadler General John H. IIUl1.der w1th overall responslb11ty for Southern prisons. Adjectives such as 'mean,' 'treacherous,' and 'decrep1t' were l1ked to h'.s name ln many Northern newspapers and contemporary novels deal1ng with that oonfinement facl11ty ln Andersonville, Georgla. J\sa B. Isam, along w1th contemporary vindlct1ve wr1ters, held Winder ultlmately responslble for thls largest of all Confederate, prlsons, General w1nder was connected ln the capaclty of comm1ssary-general of pr1sons. To him belongs the guilt of permltting the prisoners to starve and rt:>t in f11thy d9ns. under h1s own eye, and w1 th his sla.nction • • .4CS And even m'ore rad10al aocounts feel that W1nder was in the ad­ m1n1stration of pr1sons for addltlonal proflt at the expense of his charges. Ambrose Spencer 1n A Narrative ~ Andersonv1lle

4?~'utCh, Andersony11le fr1son, p. 113. 48 Asa B. Isam. fr1sgners ~ ~ ~ Mi11tary ?risons (Clnclnnat1, Lyman & Cushing, 1890), p. 303. 26 depicts Winder as an entrepreneur, whose exploitative venture wi th the Anclersonville sutler during camp inspections at Andersonville. literally stole from prisoners who had to pay the inflateci prices the two thieves charged due to their mono­ poly of the market.49 Certainly. from the Northern viewpoint, little good was said of General Winder. Exactly how well winder conducted the prisons is difficult to determine. with the adversities already plaguing the prison system when he took control, it is very subjective to attempt to cite evidence of the general's positive or negative impact on the prison system. 'rhe commissary general himself pointed out that he: had not had any experiences with prisoners of war and there was lLot a Confederate official in the land who had. 50 Unlike the North, which had organized a prison system w1th the opening guns and appointed a commissary general shortly thereafter, the South d1d not evolve such a system until almost the end of 1864 and this, with General w1nder as director, had virtually a negligible effect.51 Finally, the appraisal of General Winder by the Confederate bureaucrats varies from administrator to adm1nis·~rator. According to John B. Jones, a clerk in the Confederatf! Government and subordinate to w1nder. the general was guilty of governmental graft by selling passports he controlled.52

49Ambrose Spencer. A Harr.tiye 2t Andetsonv11le (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1866), p. 49. 50John McElroy, Ib1A ~ Andersonville (New York, McDOWell, Obolensky Inc., 1957). p. xv • .51~, VII, 11.50 • .52John B. Jones, ~ hebel ~ Clerk'S ~.rY (~ew Yorka Sagamore Press, Inc., 1958). p. 4)8. 27

Jones also notes in his diary the accusations made by Colonel

D. '1'. Chand.ler in one of the routine prison inspections of Andersonville. 'l'he 'ugly report.' which Chandler made, character­ izes ·'Gen. w.' s treatment of the prisoners as barbarous. and their condltion as a 'hell on earth.· .. 5) The report created a sensation 1n Richmond and, no doubt, hurt Winder's position even more dramatically than hundreds of oharges made by the enemy. W1.nder's foremost superior, Jefferson J.Javis. gave the general a very fav()rable appraisal. In fact. Davis makes a point of paying tribute to John Winder as truly a courageous. kind man, void of thf~ nefarious traits his critics accuse him of possessing I General John H. Winder • • • went to Anderson­ ville in June (l86~. and found disease prevailing to sUlch an extent that. to abate the pestilence. he immediately advised the removal of prisoners to other points. As soon as arrangements could be made. he was i:nstructed to disperse them to Millen and else­ where, as in his judgment might be best for their health, comfort. and safety •••• (Zeneral John H. winder OfaV a man too brave to be cruel to anything within his power, too well born to be influenced by low or sordid motives. I have referred only to a few faots illustrative of his kindness to the prisoners after he went to Georgia, and they were in keeping with his oonduct toward the prisoners at Riohmond. The latter fact, together with his sterling integrity and soldierly character, had caused his selec~lon for the Chief control of Confederate prisons.~ For the Commander-in-Chief, the leader of the Confederacy, General Winder had most capably served as prison oontroller. However,Davis' sentiments would have motivated very little forgiveness from the ----- 5:3lli5L.. p. 455. 54DaVis. ~ ~ lall ~ Confederate Government. II. 597. 28

North. Undoubtedly. General Winder would have been executed as a war '~riminal had he survived the war. On February 8, 1864, General winder died of apoplexy. In correlation to the hysteria of the epc)ch. Winder' s death was believed to have been pre­ mature& ~l result of God's Will due to the old general's secular wickednes~:I. The North would have to look to others for the burden of responsiblity. 'rhe second of the major individuals concerned with account­ ability from the Northern point-of-view was Jefferson Davis. Davis, naturally. was pointed out during and after the Civil war as the biggest agent of Southern 'atrocities,' being the President of the Confederate States of America. we know today that Jeff Davis was not brought to account publicly via any sort 'of trial. but he did spend a period of confinement at Fort Monroe. awaiting for the Federal Government to prepare a case against him which did not materialize. His role is amazingly slight, and he was ignorant to a great extent of the crimes committed and could not have been held responsible for prisons like Libby or Andersonville any more than Lincoln could have been held responsible for prisons in the North, such as Elmira or Johnson's Island. The third man, Heinrich Hartmann Wirz, was, by comparison, the most controversial, ironic, and tragic, of the three. He was born in Switzerland and, by a series of very extraordinary coincidences, migrated to the Southern United States. wirz was hardly the Machiavelian character he has repeatedly been por­ trayed as. but, rather, the obedient soldier, attempting to do 29 his duty as best he could, wh1ch 1s so often attributed to the Teutonic military man. Wirz was a unique figure in the annals of the Civil war for his fate. Desp1te crys of the Northern populace to 'hang Jeff Dav1s on a sour apple tree,' W1rz was the only Confederate admin1strator to be executed following the war. 55 W1rz has been character1zed in many different ways and 1t seems that the more years that pass and the more facts brought to light, the more subtle and reserved the characterization of Henry wirz becomes. In addition, 1t becomes more obvious that h1s sentence was not Just, If the people of the North in the tall of 1865 had used the language of the late 1940's they would have said that Captain W1rz was a war cr1minal who had been properly convlcted and then had been hanged for atrocious war crimes. Today, w1th the more sober perspect1ve of nearly a cen­ tury of peace, the business looks a little dif­ ferent. The language of the Old Testament would have been betters wirz was a scapegoat, dying for the sins of many people, of whom, some lived south of the otomac River, while others 11ved north of it. 56 Jefferson Davis, in a manner similar to his Winder tribute, feels that denry Wirz' fate was totally unjust. The President of the Confederacy also attests to his 'honor and fldellty' in a con­ trast to his prosecuters of Southern hatred. In his memOirs, after Davis related the decision by General Winder to move the sick prisoners-of-war from Andersonville, the Rebel Executive ex-

55Alan Baker, IbA Qiy~l ~ in Amerlca (New York, Doubleday & Company, 1961), p. 162 56Bruce catton, "Prlson Camps of the Civl1 War," Am.rican Herltage ~4Sazlne. X (August, 1959). 5. 30

pounded upon the merits of his Camp Commandanta Major wirz thereafter remained in command at An,dersonville, and the testimony of Chief­ Surgeon stevenson of the hospital at Anderson­ ville, bears testimony to the success with which wirz improved the post, and the good effect upon the health of the prisoners. This unfortunate man--who, under the severe temptat10n to wh1ch he was exposed before his execut1on, exh1bited honor and f1de11ty strongly 1n contrast w1th his tempters and persecutors--1t now appears, was the victim of men whom, 1n h1s k1ndness, he paroled to take care of their sick comrades, and who, after hav1ng violated ;helr parole, appear­ ed to testlfy aga1nst h1m. 5 or course, all thls favorable test1mony for Wirz came long after h1s execution. 'rhe comments made at hls trlal, except for Doctor stevenson, were v1rtually un1form 1n condemnat1on of the l1ttle major. rhe Llnion pr1soners, 1n the1r anx1ety and need to establ1sh the persor.l respons1ble for their suffering, pa1nt the 1mage of their jailer as almost 1nhuman. David S. Wh1teneack relates that h1s first encounter with wirz was not 1n any sense of the word,

'favorable~ I' "In the meantime ~irtz (iici1 was heap1ng abuse upon us, and velwing that he would have us shot as murderers, thieves and robbet's ... 58 One prisoner cla1ms he was, "'Certainly the

worst man I ever saw,' • • • (jnd tha~ 'wirz 1s walking about the pr1sorl revolver 1n hand, cursing and swear1ng. '"59 'roday,

57DaV18, lUJI.I. amllill Slt. ConredeIJlte Government, II, 597. 58DaVid S. Whitenack, "Remin1scences of the Civ1l War. Andersonv1lle," Indiapa Magazine 2t H1storY, XI (1915), 131. 59Hesseltine. C1yil ~ Prisons. p. 142.

'---_.. _------31 most histor1.ans believe it was Wirz' precarious position at the nadir of the camp's h1story which prompted his sentence more than the realism of 'alleged' accounts.60 'rhe maladministration exemplified by Andersonville was on a plateau of the first magnttude. Even today, it seems incredible that a stoclc:ade surrounded by tall, healthy Georgia pines was not able to utilize them for any type of shelter. The Confederate Government forbade the impressment of saw mills due to an un- founded prelnise that such an act would cripple the already de­ funct trans:portation system. The fact that the Rebels did ctG nothing to ;secure the lumber resources on e1 ther side of the pen helped IJreate the new-founded xenophobia against these 'non- Americans' "by the Northern press. Undoubtedly, the ineptitude demonstrateci in the area of logist1oal procurement was the most disastrous form of mismanagement the South showed a tendency toward. Ovid Futch devotes an entire chapter in his book, HistorY Qt Andersonville Prison, and he is equally appalled at the in- eptness of Andersonville management. It is fairly obvious that part of the suf­ fering and death at Andersonville was attributable to the paucity of developed southern resouroes. what may be less obvious, though no less important, is that some of it oame as a result of short-sighted management and lack of administrative ability. On February 7, while the prison was under construct­ ion, Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General Samuel Cooper asked Brigadier General Howell Cobb, commander of the Georgia State Guard which had expired three days previously, to recommend an

60Bruce Catton and Ovid Futch are two notable examples. 32

efficient commandant for Camp Sumter, Confederate Statc~s Military Prison at Andersonville. Cooper tho~~ht the commandant should be a Georgian, a col­ onel or a brigadier general, unagsigned because of wounels or some other disability. 1 Following a series of considered commanders, the job went to Lieutenant. Colonel A. w. Pearsons. within five months, he was to be replaced by Cobb himself. Prior to Cobb, wirz was ap- pointed by Pearsons as commander of the prison, but the ap­ pointment was not official until September. Constantly, the Confederates appointed and reappointed Camp Sumter commandants with little administrative success. Certainly this inability to retain commandants said something was wrong with the com- petency of the Confederate leadership. Even the subordinates, who remained the duration of the Rebellion at Andersonville, were plagued by doubts of their own effectiveness. an example was the 'pathetic case' of Captain Richard winder. By the time Andersonville reached the population of thirty- five thous:and prisoners, the verbal picture of the camp was such that misery and suffering would be the only adjectives which could identify the inhabitants. Late summer of 1864, the sun beating down with no break in the intensity, day-after-day, saw the increase in mortalities rise considerably, and the filth, vermin, lack of water and food for sustenance, all intensified the anguish and death.fhe small creek, which passed through the camp, was by this time a gooey. putrid quagmire of human waste and maggots which generated a stench that would make the

61Futch, Andersonville Prison. p. 12. JJ prisoners and guards alike sick to their stomachs. To alleviate the crowding, the Confederates deoided to enlarge the pen, but, Wirz himself acknowledged that had done little to help. The prison, although a large addition has been made, is too crowded, almost daily large numbers of prisoners arrive, and before two weeks it w:Lll be in the same condition it was before the liddi tion was made, and all internal improve­ ment:5r, which you are aware yourself are of the utmo::rt importance t g~ll come to a dead halt for want of room. • • • However, this addition, making the size of the prison pen now about twenty three acres,6J would be the last to be made. One ()f the fortunate occurances of nature happened for the prisorlers in mid -August. With water almost nonexistant from the prisoner-dug springs, "a spring of good, pure water broke out within the prison. From this time on we did not suffer from bad water or lack of water ... 64 This bleSSing, however, did not slow down the vermin and insects preying on prisoners hardly able to defend themselves against their numbers. The cries coming from within the pen were partly due to mosqUitoes and, partly, as Samuel Boggs related, from other sources: As the long scorching day closes and the air grows cooler, we lay on the unsheltered filthy ground trying to shut out with sleep some of the surrounding horrors. Million upon millions of mosqUitoes come from the surrounding swamp to feast on our emasciated bodies; their buzzing hum added to the bedlam of the prison--with the hooti:ng of the owls and the mornful notes of the

62.QR, VII, 521-2.

6JSamuel S. Boggs, Eighteen Months ~ frisoner under the Rebel ~ (New York: S. S. Boggs, 1887), p. 52. 64 Henry Devillez, ""Reminiscences of the Civil War. Anderson- ville, to IncUBns Magazine .Qf. HistorY, XI (1915), 146. 34

whippoorwills--howled a requ1em broken only by the crack of the muskets of the murderous guards, or the sound of the1r vo1ces as they cry out the hour of the6~1ght from the1r perches on the pal11sades. Along with these 1nsect oppressors, pr1soner-of-war Dev1llez states that, "maggots and lice were the torments of the pr1son­ ers and I have seen men eaten up by them. tt66 'rwo other aspects of the prison' s inter10r control created added diff1culty for the already problem-troubled camp adm1n­ istrat1on. One of the two was somewhat effect1vely resolved, wh1le the other would result 1n anguish for both administrators and pr1soners unt1l long after the conclus1on of the war. 'l'he f1rst was perhaps the only jo1nt-effort demonstrated at Anderson­ v1lle to cc,rrect a problem plagu1ng both groups. It was a Yankee crim1nal element that un1ntent1onally caught up in battle as capt1ves, wh1le attempt1ng to desert the un1ts they had jOined for bounty (1.e., large en11stment payments); hence, their name, 'bounty-jumpers.' These bad factors of the Un10n confinement soc1ety tormented the decent Un10n prisoners within the pen by stealing an.d robbing from them.rhe movement, as it progressed, became more pronounced and organized with an ultimate ruler, lNilllam Collins (referred to as 'Mosby'), and oalled by the

other prise'ners as simply the 'Ra1ders' or '~'Yaarkers' by the Rebel guards. The final cr1sis was reaohed by the first

65BoggS, Eighteen Months, p. 42. 66DeVillez, Indiana V@g&zlne ~ HlstorY, p. 146. 35 part of July when the 'Raiders' were all but declaring total was upon all their supposed comrades: looting, killing, and sadistically beating prisoners methodically at night. For survival the other prisoners 'secretly organlzed' a 'regulator' force. 66 .And, by the third of July, prlsoner c1 vl1 war wi thln the stockade had broken out. The lronic conflict (i.e., a prisoner civil war while captives during the American Civil war) ended with the superior numbers of the 'regulators' win- ning outl 'over a hundred' of the 'Ralders' were arrested and prisoner cc)urts were set up.67 Slx were sentenced to hang and the Confederate administration ln the camp (Captaln wlrz. in particular) cooperated ln holding the condemned men and approved the legitimacy of the prison trlbunals.68 wirz even gave the prisoners the lumber for the scaffold. 69 'l'he six were hanged and the reign of these criminals ~et an abrupt end with the unique cooperation of the decent prisoners and the camp administration. 'i'be second interior problem was never solved and this probably iel due to more to the inadequacy of the guard force. 'i'he guards of Andersonville were quite erratic ln the manner in which they preformed thelr dutles because of their extremes in age. 'llhe Confederacy could not afford to tie up good troops

66Bogg'S. Eighteen Months, p. 42. 67Ibid. .• , p. 43. 68.QR, VII, 426. 69FutCh. Andersonville frison, p. 72. )6 guarding Union prisoners-of-war; consequently, they put the boys too young and the men too old to fight on the front lines in the guard details of the Confederate prisons. This was a calamity for many unfortunate Union soldiers imprisoned at Andersonville. l'he lnabili ty of the Rebel Administration at Camp sumter to have their guard deal with the internal disci­ pline of the pen allowed the 'Raiders' get as far as they did.?O Also, the large number of killings near the 'dead-line' tragic- ally emphasize the ineffectiveness of guard force. Northern c1tzens were getting an idea of this 'dead-line' as a nefarious means of killing Union soldiers pr10r to the end of the Civil

war. An article in Atlantl,c Monthly (March, 1865) depicted the 'dead-line' as. 'rhe dead line, Drake drew back from a light railing running parallel to the pen. 'What the Deuse is the dead line?' The new way to pay old debts, and put a Yankee out of the world cheap. Show so much as your lit­ tle f:lnger outside Qf that, and the guard nails you w1.th u bullet • • • '/1 As most. other Southern stockades, Andersonville had her infamous 'dead-line,,' It was speculated by a number of prisoners at Andersonville that the old General winder had decreed that those guards who shot prisoners in the 'dead-line' would receive a furlough. 'l'he truth of the matter is that the guards were so unstable due to their mental status and age that they followed the order e,xactly and allowed for no exceptions (e .g., inadver- ----.-- 70Hesseltlne, Civ1l War Pr1sons, p. 144.

71"At AndersonVille," Atlantic Monthly, xV (Io1arch, 1865), 287. 37 tent touching of the rail or sudden movement near the rail). Although both Winder and wirz opposed these 'rash' acts, many soldiers were shot to death for such innocent mistakes. 72 The guards were of little help aside of preventing escapes, and they did not always deter these. Natural and geographic elements stopped the escapes from the interior of the pen and, also, the Rebels used dogs to locate escapees o:nce they were aware of definite breaks from the interior of the stockade • .&scape was always foremost in our minds. Those who succeeded one way or another in passing the stockade limits found still more difficulties lying between them and freedom that would dis­ courage ordinarily resolute men. '.the first was to geit; away from the 1mmediate vicinity of the priso]'l. All around were rebel patrols, pickets and gl~rds watch1ng every avenue of escape. Several packs of hounds formed efficient co­ adjutors of these and were more dreaded by possible jailors. Guards and patrols could be evaded or circumvented, but the hounds could not. Nearly every man brought back from a futile attempt at es(~ape told the same story--he had been able to escape the humau rebels, but not their canine colleagues.'3 Even againflt these impossible odds, men were willing to risk their lives: to escape from Andersonville. Death. they thought, would be an escape itself from their former existence. As the' end grew nearer for the Confederate states of America, prison administrators were compelled to make one last major re­ Vision of the prison. The 'surgeon in charge' of Andersonville hospital. Loctor R. Randolph Stevenson, organized 'a receiving and distributing diVision inside the stockade; which was an

72 1"utCh, Histor;y 9I.. Andersonville Prison, p. 56. 73 NcEI:roy, .l.hlJl B.i. Andersonville, p. 49. 38 attempt, to check inmates in a prelim1nary a1d station to determ1ne who should and should not go 1nto the hosp1 tal. 74 T'h1s coupled w1 th Surgec)n Stevenson' s renovat1on of the Camp Sumter HosP1 tal. enhanced the health of those suffer1ng from d1sease. hunger, and exposure. The death rates were temporar1ly conta1ned and, due to this effort by stevenson and h1s ass1stants, undoubtedly a great mass of human angu1sh was subl1mely healed. The tragedy that th1s was not done sooner and on a much greater scale we1ghed heav1ly upl::>n the consc1ousness of the South's wart1me gu1lt. Had the other Confederate offic1als portrayed such talent, perhaps Andersonv1lle, as we know 1t, would not have ex1sted. Certa1nly, stevenson, Surgeon Isa1ah H. Wh1te, and their staffs, given an almost 1mposs1ble task of allev1at1ng the med1cal problems of a pr1soner-of-war camp dest1ned to have 1nevitable sickness and death, d1d much to prevent the f1gures of mortal1ty from ris1ng abo"ITe th1rteen and a half thousand. '£h1s was a feat 1n its own r1ght. A phenomenon exper1enced by the c1t1zenry of R1chmond now gr1pped th,e adm1n1strators of Andersonv11le. 'rhe R1chmond c1 t1zens fleared the pr1soners of L1bby break1ng out and reveng- 1ng the1r Gonfederate-1nfl1cted suffer1ngs. L1kew1se, the execut1ves of the pr1son compound began to suffer the 'mass upr1s1ng syndrome' 1n the clos1ng stages of the pr1son's ex- 1stence. .As Sherman spl1 t the South w1 th h1s g1gant1c thrust, exc1tement spread throughout the camp that the 11berator had

74.QH, VII, 1076. 39 at last come to the South. General feelings and sentiments were exceptionally high and General Winder was determined that the prisoners must be reminded, at least for the time being, that he was in command and they were still prisoners-of-war.

~inder and wirz feared. with good reasons, that if the Union prisoners stormed all the gates Simultaneously, the camp might actually fall into the prisoners' hands. It must be remembered that the camp administration was about as skeptical of the stab1ity and moral fiber of the guards as the prison population. Consequently, wirz warned the Union prisoners that he would 'open with grape and oanister on the Stockade' if such an at­ tempt were made. 75 It was not so much a question of the quantity of Union prisoners within the compound, but the quality of the Georgia Reserves, their reaction time was either too quiCk, killing prior to thinking (as was the case in the 'dead-line' fiasco), or far too slow, allowing the prisoner to get away prior to firing. Before the camp was liberated, even some of these reserves were taken--1eaving only a 'skeleton force' to guard the prisoners.

By this time, the Confederates were moving their charges out of Andersonville due to the nearing proximity of Union raids. Some went to F1orenoe, South Carolina, some went to Jacksonville, Florida (and returned due to the directive of a Federal commander not to allow General Scammon to receive them). for exchange. and some were simply paroled. In any event, the prison, on Nay 3,

75 wcElroy, 1b1a ~ 4ndersonvi1l§, p. 57. 40

1865, came to an end and the prisoners immediately raided the military stores. A demand for revenge was also sounded to all the prominent citizens of the North.

One might wonder why ~~jor Wirz did not attempt to get himself and his family out of the country when it was apparent that the c,ause was lost and the Federals would be looking for him. Quite simply, it was a case of him not realizing that they would hold him responsible for the entire prison crime (which, wa,s a crime in its own right) and being perhaps quixotic enough to 'think that he would be able to simply gather his things and leave in peace. Unfortunately, for Henry wirz this was not the! case. A delegation of Union officers was dispatched to Andersollville Camp by General James H. !tiilson, commanding cavalry forces stationed in the Macon. Georgia, area. 'I'heir orders were to arrest wirz as a war criminal and place him in

confinement in Macon which is precisely what they did. On ~~y 20, 1865. he was taken to washington, D. C., to await trial.76 'The hysteria of the post-war era had begun prior to the end of hostilities. 'I'he literature which 'fired the imagin­ ation' of the Northern reader came from accounts of the Southern prison system. wirz, with his accent and small build. added to the portrald enVisioned by some vinditive Americans as the foreigner

coming to ~merica to pOSition himself with the Hebel Government to do his nefarious. sinister work within the framework of legality. Xenophobia was certainly a factor as the Northerners were building their semi-relevant allusions, aSSOCiating him

p. 290. 41 with another German-speaking criminal, George Atzerodt, a member of the conspirators to assassinate the President of the United States!

'rhe trial opened on August 23, 1865, with il'la jor General (Brevet) Lewis wallace presiding in the case of 'The United

States vs. i'lajor Henry ~irz.' During the next two months, testimony from the higher echelons of the Union Army down to the lowest private pointed fingers of accusation at wirz. By the time all the testimony had been presented, there seem­ ed little doubt that Major Wirz was indeed a fiend and villian, specifically, a truly inhuman man. He sat alone, however, "as the apoplectic rtlarylander, General winder, who had as­ sumed a role not unlike that played in World war II by the despised Nazi, Heinrich Rimmler,,,77 had died of old age shortly prior to the end of the war. 'r'he court found wirz guilty on most of the thirteen counts cited against him in the original indictment and sentenced him to hang. President Andrew Johnson approved the sentence and, on November 10, 1865. wirz was hanged. The unfair analogies about Wirz and Atzerod t, the presidenti,!:ll assassination plotter, had final significance.

~irz found his final resting place to be not his native German­ speaking S'witzerland, but next to Atzerodt (who had been hanged in July for his part in the assassination), in the Capital Prison gra"iTeyard in Washington, D.C.

77Iw1cEl:roy, ~ Was Andersonville, p. vx.

42

Unfortunate as wirz' end seems. the North was not to al- low him to rest in peace. When the Georgia Divison of the Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated a memorial to Henry wirz in 1909. the Northern writers were outraged. The entire matter was enough to be an impetus for N. P. Chipman to write yet another vindictive account of the wirz trial and his implicit guilt of w1.ckedness, Chipman clinging to the charge of wirz being motiYated to kill.78 All this came thirty-five years after the E~nd of the Reconstruction Period. with its vindictive hysteria quelled and forty-six years since wirz' hanging was '1:Jlll accompl1t •

78 . N. P. Chipman, :I.b§. 'fragedx of Anders2nville (New York, N. P. Chipman, 1911). B1bl1op;raphx Ie J300ks

Baker, Alan. lllA Clyll .9l: 1n Amer1ca. New York. Doubleday & Company. 1961. Boatner, l

Ch1pman, N. P. ~ Tragedy gt Andersonville. New York. N. P. Chipman, 1911.

Coulter, E. Merton. ~ Q9nfgderAte states gt Am'r~ca. Baton Rouge I Louis1ana state Un1versity Press. 1950.

Dav1s, Jefferson. 1M Ri.I!. ilD.4 Wl .2f. ~ Confederate Goyern­ ~. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881. Volume II.

Flory, William E. s. Eri.onerg ~ ~, A Syudx !n lbA Qgyelop­ mAD1 At Internatl~l 1AK. washington I Government Printing: Office. 19 2. Futch, OVid L. HistgrY 9I. Ander'gnvl1J,.e fr1son. Indiantown a Univers1.ty of Florida Presa, 19 8.

HesseltinEl, William B. Ciyll.!&l: frlsons' A sty.4Y !D .Yl: Psycllol()gy. New York, Frederick Ungar Pub11sh1ng Co., 1930.

Isam, Asa B. Prisoners £t ~ ~ Milltlrx Prispus. Cincin­ natil Lyman & Cushing, 1890.

Jones, John B. A Bebel ~ Qlerk's Db_ry. New York, Sagamore Press, Inc., 1958. l'icElroy •.John. IhlJl D.I. Andersony11l,. New York, McDowell, Obolensky Inc., 1957.

Miller, F. 'f. Ilut Photographic Historz .2.t: .:Yl! Clv1l !!at. New York: The Rev1ew of Reviews Co., 1912. Volume VII.

Putnam, George H. A irisoner ~ !At in V~rg~n1a 1864-5. New York, The Knickerbocker Press, 1912. . Roach. Alv"a C. Ilut Prisoner of ~. and l!2l! ;l're~ted. Indiana- polis, l'he Ra11road C1ty Pub11shing House. 19 5.

Spencer, Ambrose. A Narrative ~ Andersonville. New York, Harper &; Brothers, 1866.

'I'he Prisol'l~ers of Libby. .I.lut Libby Chroniole. New York I Louis N. Beaud.ry, 1889.

U. S. war Department. Ib4 ~ £t ~ Rebel11on, ~ Comp1lation 2! ~ ~f1cial Records £t ~ Union ~ co~ederate Armies. ~ashington: Government Printing Offioe, 189. Ser1es II. Volumes I-IX.

II. Magazine Articles

"At Anders:onville," Atlantic Monthly, XV (ZV'arch, 1865), 282-93. Bryne, Frsmk L. ttA General Behaind Bars: Neal Dow 1n Libby Prison." Ciyil !!At. HistorY, (June, 1962). 164-83.

Bryne, Fre~nk L. "Libby Prison, A Study in Emot1ons,It JOurnal9I.. Southern History, XXIV (February, 1958), 430-44.

Catton, Bruce. ttPrison Camps of the Civil ~'ar," Am~rican Her1tagE~ Nagazine, X (August, 1959), 1-14. Devillez, lienry. ttReminisoences of the Civil war, Anderson­ ville," Ind1ana ~klgaz1ne of History, XI (1915), 141-46.

whitenack, David S. "Reminiscences of the Civil war a Anderson­ ville," Indiana Magazine Q( tiistory, XI (1915), 130-34.

III. Unpublished D1arles Henry B. Spark's Diary (January 3, 1864 to December 30, 1864), Indiana State Library (Central Divison), Indianapolis.